Red is the Rose
by Keemon
Summary: Tom and Sybil dance, remember, and move forward. Spoilers for Season 3.


A/N: Obviously I don't own Downton Abbey. This is my first Downton Abbey fic… I haven't seen Season 3—not sure I want to from what I hear—but I know what happened and have seen bits of scenes through tumblr. But still… major Season 3 spoilers in this fic, so read at your own risk.

I hope Sybil and Tom don't seem to OOC here—I see them as a "witty banter" sort of couple. Though my attempt at witty banter may have fallen flat, haha. Especially since I wrote this without any editing really...sorry...

This song is a favorite of my Irish grandparents btw, and I love it too. :)

* * *

"I want to dance."

Tom looked up from the paper sprawled out in front of him and gave his fidgety wife a mildly incredulous look. "You want to dance?" He could not help giving her bloated form a pointed stare. She was far into her pregnancy, and Sybil had been exhausted completing minor tasks as of late. Nonetheless, being confined to a bed hadn't suited her well, and she had been itching to _do_ something. _I feel as if I'm trapped here again, Tom, _she had told him. _And I know there's no way around it, but it's a truly awful feeling._ "Love, you know I'd love to dance with you but…" He paused, trying to think through his words. Care had to be taken lately with what he said around his wife.

"But what?" she responded a little too sharply.

"But shouldn't you be keeping off your feet? You've been complaining about your ankles swelling up, I don't want you to make it worse."

"Oh, bother all that," she replied rather crossly. She began to try to push the covers off of her, and her husband moved forward to assist her as she sat up. "I'm not expecting to be leaping and jumping about. But I'm still not an invalid. I just want a slow, calm dance with my husband." She looked up at him challengingly.

Tom's lips twitched upwards. "I suppose if I was locked in my bedroom all day, I would like some form of entertainment as well," he allowed.

"You've practically been locked in here with me, though," Sybil replied, her look softening slightly. "I really am sorry that I've been so ill at ease. I don't know what's gotten into me lately."

"You've never been one to be caged," he informed her. _No…she certainly hadn't been._

"No, I suppose not." They sat in a comfortable silence for a moment, before Sybil interjected, "But really, Tom, I would like to dance. Nothing straining," she added quickly as he opened his mouth to respond. "It can be almost like walking slowly if you'd like."

Tom shot her an amused look. "I think dancing here would just end up looking like we were walking around the room with a strange gait, m'love. We've no music to dance to."

"Who said we'd be without music?" Sybil shot her husband a sly glance at his raised eyebrow. "You're going to sing." The eyebrow shot up higher.

"So you want me to sing and dance for you?" he asked wryly. Sybil breathed a laugh at his expression. "I don't have any experience on the stage; I'm sure it would be a poor performance."

"You should take lessons from Mr. Carson as soon as possible. I can arrange that," Sybil replied with a laugh.

"Mr. Carson…?"

"Oh, never mind that. Please, won't you do it?"

He examined her expression, a little surprised. "You're actually serious? You know by now I can't sing—"

"Then just hum," she entreated. "Or sing softly. You don't have to belt it out and bring the whole house upstairs to watch." He snorted at the thought of warbling out a song in front of a scandalized Lord Grantham. She smiled briefly as well, before resuming her pleading gaze. "Let's pretend it's just us again. Like we're back in Dublin, in the flat." He grinned and shook his head.

"Do I need to remind you how long you made fun of me after hearing me sing when it _was just us, back in Dublin, in the flat?_" Her laughter wasn't hidden quite fast enough behind her hand. He felt his lips stretch upwards further in spite of himself. She was losing her aristocratic reflexes, and it was well worth it to see that smile rather than the back of a hand.

"I won't laugh this time, I swear it," she managed to promise in a voice that was properly grave, but the curl of a smile at the corner of her lips gave her away. "It will be a solemn affair."

"I doubt it," he responded resignedly, but smiled nonetheless, extended his hand to her, and helped her to slowly rise from the bed. "I suppose I'll just have to endure the ridicule."

"I applaud your bravery," Sybil replied with a playful, modified curtsy, bending her knees as low as was comfortable with the extra weight around her middle. He chuckled and wrapped a hand around what he could reach of her waist, her protruding stomach bumping his, trying to think of a relatively easy song to sing. He couldn't think of any, and with her expectant look jumbling his thoughts, he started on the first song that came to his mind, one he had heard often enough back home.

_**Come over the hills my bonny Irish lass**_

_**Come over the hills to your darling**_

_**You choose the road, love, and I'll make a vow**_

_**That I'll be your true love forever**_

Sybil's playful expression softened, and the pair began to sway slowly around the room to the quiet, out-of-tune singing. Tom allowed his mind to wander as they danced, remembering.

_**Red is the rose that in yonder garden grows**_

_**Fair is the lily of the valley**_

_**Clear is the water that flows from the Boyne**_

_**But my love is fairer than any**_

_He reaches out his hand to help her into the car, trying hard to be nonchalant. She had only been giving him shy, skirting glances ever since the recent…incident…at the garden party. Every time he so much as tries to catch her eye, she looks demurely away. He can't stand it, this indirectness. And he can't bring himself to raise the topic of what happened because he's so very afraid of that typical, aristocratic non-answer. Maybe one day he will be brave enough to endure it… but for the moment he has to tackle the problem of holding her hand once again, however briefly, to hand her into the car. And she is simply staring at him, unmoving, as his hand is left outstretched, empty._

_ "M'lady?" he questions her in a slightly strained voice._

_ She starts, a blush blossoming on her cheeks. Slowly, she takes his hand._

**It's down in Killarney's green woods that we strayed**

**When the moon and the stars, they were shining**

**For the moon shone its rays on her locks of golden hair**

**And she said she'd be my love forever**

_"I can't honestly remember ever being this happy," Sybil tells him softly. He looks down at her, comfortable in his arms as they lean, sitting, against the outer wall of the garage._

_ "Neither can I," he responds, feeling a little delirious from recent events himself. She chose him—she actually _chose _him. No more doubts, no more hesitations, no more 'terribly flattered.' He looks down at her, the moonlight casting a silver pale on everything but the pair of them, illuminated by the golden light from the garage. "Should you… should you be getting back, though?" he asks hesitantly. It seems so unreal that this has happened, and he can imagine being discovered, having it all crash around them the instant she finally decided—it all seems so fragile._

_ "Perhaps I should," she responds simply. "But I won't, not yet. I've made my decision, Tom,"—he can't believe he's hearing his Christian name on her lips at last— "but before we leave, before we run away from all this…I want to stay like this for a while. Alone, just lying back and watching the stars," she smiles as she gazes upwards._

_ It is definitely not the night sky he is watching._

_ "If we are caught before we can leave…" she starts, and pauses. He waits for her to finish. "If we are caught, know that if you are sent away, I will follow you. I want to always be where you are." His breath catches in his throat for a moment._

_ "Me too, my love," he whispers in her ear. "Me too."_

_**Red is the rose that in yonder garden grows**_

_**Fair is the lily of the valley**_

_**Clear is the water that flows from the Boyne**_

_**But my love is fairer than any**_

_ She walks down the aisle, and he thinks to himself that she seems truly happy now—just a few hours ago she had been almost inconsolable over the absence of her parents, particularly her father, from the wedding. He had snuck away to see her upon hearing of her distress, bad luck be damned—he had brought this situation upon her, and he wanted to make absolutely sure she didn't regret it._

_ Now, as she lifts the veil to her simple white dress, made so much more beautiful because she is the one wearing it, and just _smiles_ at him, he knows that both of them feel no regret in this moment, only joy._

_**It's not for the parting with my sister Kate**_

_**It's not for the grief of my mother—**_

He stopped singing abruptly. He had suddenly remembered the ending of the song, and that isn't something he even wants to imagine, much less sing.

He felt Sybil's arms slide from his shoulders to rest on his arms. She was smiling up at him.

"Thank you," she told him softly, as if part of her was still lost in the memories of their courtship as well. He smiled at her, and the baby pressed between them promised of the future.

* * *

_No._

_No, no, no._

_How could this happen?_ Tom thought numbly as he stood in Sybil's room, feeling as if the air was being crushed out of his lungs. He couldn't breathe. How long had it been since they had danced in this very room, unaware of the horror to be unleashed in such a short time? How…? How could it have all changed so fast? He tried, he tried so very hard to forget, but the last unsung verse of the song kept coming back to haunt him:

_**It's all for the loss of my bonny Irish lass**_

_**That my heart is breaking forever.**_

The corpse on the bed stared, unforgivingly, blankly at the ceiling.

* * *

It was some time later before he was able to remember that the words in that fateful verse were not in fact the _last_ words in the song.

"How's she doing?" Mary asks softly, treading carefully around the aura of death that still hangs heavily over his baby's—_their _baby's—head.

_**Red is the rose that in yonder garden grows**_

_**Fair is the lily of the valley**_

_**Clear is the water that flows from the Boyne**_

_**But my love is fairer than any**_

He smiles proudly. "She's blooming."


End file.
